The Real Relevance of Modern Regulatory Practice

The reading selections for the class up to this point have been, in my estimation, phenomenal. The assigned readings, coupled with some personal selections have honestly challenged my view of the modern political process. We started off reading Randal O'Toole's "The New Conservationists" which shed an interesting light on environmental politics. If I understood his writing correctly, history has revealed two traditional ways of fighting for the environment. The first is the Preservationist view which is hung up on a Jack London, romantic view of nature in which man is no match for mother nature and when he does get involved he only makes the environment worse off. Thus, for preservationists, nature knows best without exception. Subsequently these folks do not believe in compromise at any cost and have become extremely aggressive and consequently successful at achieving their policy objectives. They also believe that the only venue these objectives can be administrated from is a national central planning agency that ensures uniformity. With such a hard line view this form of activist has historically dragged the other view along, almost against their will, dictating policies to be implemented.

The other view, the Conservationist view, is that the "nature knows best" view is schizophrenic and if anyone ever wants to achieve any functional and aesthetically pleasing version of a novelists nature, one must manage it, but not at the national level. To be effective the management must be done at the local level, where incentives being the key ingredient, internalize social externalities. This, believe Conservationists, would allow for mankind and nature to co-exist in a way that would be beneficial to both. It all boils down to the idea that conservationists want to see the same enviromental quality the preservationist want, however only the conservationists have a grasp on intellectual reality when it comes to achieving some semblance of this romantic vision. Arguably however the conservationists have had their roles and policies dictated to them by the Preservationists.

One could easily see the underpinning ideology these environmental visions share with current political parties. The left and right of American politics fall under similar descriptions. The left are romantic ideologues that try and force a novelistic normative view of the world on American's. For the left this vision can only be implemented through a national central planner . Compromise is never an option either. The left, like Preservationists have been extremely successful at aggressively administering their policies. The welfare state, or modern American politics realistically understood, is their creation.

While in contrast to the left the right claims to be based in reality. They claim that they have the only solutions (and until recently) these solutions are free market based. The right was functional ideas that benefit both sides of an issue. Finally like the conservationists the right has been politically drug behind the left, being forced time and time again to redefine itself to accommodate the left (for more information on this idea read F.A. Hayek's "Why I Am Not a Conservative"). However both parties want a better America.

These ideas relates well to Virginia Postrel's Piece, "The Bonds of Life." This section describes societal rules and more specifically what kind societal rules are necessary and efficient for prosperity at every level of the community. "The real question is not whether "rules" in general are good or bad. It is what sort of rules are necessary and appropriate." Postrel goes on to describe in some detail her dynamist rules that she appropriately feels are the right rules. These rules that she advocates allow individuals to benefit from knowledge they themselves do not have by facilitating contract enforcement and freedom to choose and be held accountable for their actions.

The key to her argument is that personal incentives matter and thus no central planner can effectively analyze all relevant information regarding personal needs and preferences, thus making it impossible for the planner to make effective rules that are flexible enough to foster prosperity. Says Postrel, "The alternative to honoring that knowledge [held by individuals] is imposing a false uniformity, a single, rigid model for how the world must be." Wait a minute, that sounds very much like the Preservationist view that O'Toole described.

This connection got me thinking about how else these two pieces related and after perusing through "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" by Thomas E. Woods I cam to a startling epiphany. Postrel perfectly complements O'Toole's description of the Preservationist way of thinking in her writing. And by so doing she captures what is at the heart of the present political quandary, the essential point resting on the fact that both sides think the rules they spout off is the only correct way of accomplishing a better America. The debate has evolved from what is truly legal or constitutional to deliberations that embody "Rachel-style rules that our technocrat-dominated political discussions have led us to equate with governance."

What Postrel describes in her article is not merely a way of looking at the world of public policy. What she describes, along with my epiphany, is the vision that the founding fathers had when they formulated the constitution. They wished to create general rules on which citizens could depend, " a reliable foundation on which to build complex, ever adapting structure that incorporated local knowledge." This structure was built upon "the logic of mutual gain from voluntary exchange [and] is perfectly general...it is not role specific. It does speak about one set of rules for employers and another for employees, or one set for landlords and another for tenants. It does not create one set of rules for people who are rich and powerful and another set for those who are frail or meek. Instead, the law [or constitution] speaks about two hardy standbys in all contractual arrangements: A and B. These people are colorless, odorless, and timeless, of no nationality, age, race or sex." The framers knew that only a system in which individuals were treated as "generic units" could a nation as committed to liberty as ours keep that precious gift.

Further the founders left the people and their states as sovereigns to decide what more specific rules should be in place by leaving the ninth and tenth amendments and restraining the federal government with specifically enumerated powers that play the role of Postrel describes as "shipping containers." These limited powers coupled with the idea of federalism allowed individuals and the states to have a basic foundation from which they could adapt and innovate while allowing for the necessary functionality need by a large geographical political unit. This "New Political Science" described by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the federalist papers wanted different systems that functioned differently in various geographical areas with only a basic foundation that was interchangeable to facilitate "domestic tranquility." Such advent support for state and individual sovereignty was the check on tyrannical rule that had permeated previous democracies and republics. The founders wanted to enlarge the sphere of politics and the interests that it represented and did so by creating a constitution that dictated state sovereignty and thus differing political regimes based only on similar foundations.

Thus the constitution concerned itself with outlining "the simple generic units" of law that allowed the various states and their inhabitants the liberty to act in their interests based on their area specific knowledge and create flexible rules that allowed for innovation and prosperity.

Those who penned the constitution of the United States also understood that without contractual enforcement all of the liberties they wished to savor would go wayside. That is why the founders described such enforcement as part of the basic rules that needed to be uniform.

Postrel's argument is not new then, it is merely a reacknowledgement of the principles the founding fathers bound themselves to when creating the constitution. These principles have been lost in the current arena of politics. The slaughter of this understanding seems to have come at the hand s of economic prosperity perpetuated by our founders. This prosperity lured politicians off into some ideologiy where they seek to "make a naturally fluid world static, to make labels permanent." To put it simple, Americans became more prosperous and at the slightest sign of future discomfort (FDR's New Deal Area) and challenge petitioned their legislators to ensure theirr station in life well into the future. Prosperity tempted Americans to want ever more regulation. Rothenburg in "Environmental Choices: Policy Responses to Green Demands" articulates the new American sell out when he said, "U.S. policy has been guided by the interaction between an increasing, economically induced, demand for high quality of life and the political system's development of an institutional structure and resulting capacity to meet this demand within the context of a democratic society."

Politicians enticed by the ever more lucrative power offered by these constituents in exchange for their normal goods (a good for which demand increases with economic resources) were more than happy to oblige by selling the constitution and our history down the river. Thus America was lulled off to some sense of carnal security by a powerful vocal minority who gladly exchanged their liberty for some sense of comfort and hijacked American politics along with the constitution.

Now the left and the right want to keep America static for political gain. By keeping America stagnant as possible, politicians and their powerful constituents are sheltered from competition and challenge (something Postrel adamantly decried as incompatible with prosperity) and continue to prosper at the expense of liberty. "Thus representing a perfect melding of reactionary goals and technocratic means [current politicians] maintain a traditional social hierarchy through complex regulations administered by experts." These laws stifle ingenuity and prosperity while creating a permanent cast system reminiscent of Orwell's Oceania.